Elizabeth C. Main - Jane Serrano 01 - Murder of the Month (19 page)

“Anything?” I asked.

“
Nothing on the answering machine,” Alix said, “but of course he could have erased it by now. I see he has caller ID though, so if Bianca tried to call him anonymously …”

” … he’d have known exactly who was on the line. She might not have realized that.”

“
Of course she wouldn’t, poor thing,” said Minnie. “Caller ID costs extra. I certainly wouldn’t pay for something that frivolous.”

“
It’s not frivolous when you have a couple of ex-husbands you don’t want to talk to,” Alix volunteered.

“
More than one?” Minnie asked. She seemed to be distracted by something, only half paying attention to the conversation.

“
Did you find something, Minnie?” I interjected. This wasn’t the time for a rehash of Alix’s love life. “You didn’t find …?”

“
Oh, no, nothing like that, dear. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t find Bianca, but I did find a very distressing clue.” Minnie’s chin quivered as she continued. “Remember when Gil told us the other day how much he’d enjoyed my special pot roast? Well, I just looked in the refrigerator. He hasn’t touched it. It’s sitting there, rotting away.”

“Why is that a clue?” Alix asked the question before I could.

“If you can’t trust him about this, you can’t trust him about anything. He lied about it. I didn’t go to all that work just to watch my good food go to waste. I have half a mind to take it home with me today.”

“
Wouldn’t that sort of tip him off to the fact that someone was in his house today?” Alix asked.

But Minnie wasn’t so easily dissuaded. “If he even noticed it was gone! He deserves to have somebody rifling his house if this is the way he treats a perfectly good pot roast. Do you know what one costs?”

“
No,” said Alix, “but I’m sure you can tell me.”

“Please,” I said, “can we—?”

Though I didn’t hear his approach, Tyler now burst into the room. “We’re screwed!” he announced.

“
Tyler, stay outside!” I said sternly. “We don’t—”

“
He’s coming … Gil’s coming!”

“
But he’s in Sisters,” Minnie sputtered..

“
That’s what you think,” Tyler said.

“
Quick! Out the kitchen door!” I said, grabbing Minnie’s arm.

Tyler blocked our path with outstretched arms. “He’s coming that way.”

“Front?” Alix asked.

“He can see that door from where he is,” Tyler said.

“
Bedroom window,” I decided, heading for the master bedroom with Minnie in tow.

“
I can’t climb out a window,” she wailed.

“
Sure you can,” Alix assured her. “It’s all in the wrists.”

I urged everyone down the thickly carpeted hallway and into the master bedroom. Racing toward the windows on the far side of the room, I heard the distant click of the back door opening. I put my finger to my lips. From the way the others had frozen in place, it was clear that they too had heard the sound.

One louvered closet door wasn’t quite closed, so I eased it open further and pointed inside. The gardenia-scented hangers and the flowing dresses inside indicated that this closet had been Vanessa’s. Alix and Minnie crowded inside, followed by Tyler. There wasn’t enough room left for me, so I squeezed under the king-sized bed.

Over the hammering of my heart, I could barely make out the sounds of footsteps coming down the hall and into the room. I heard a dresser drawer open, then close. The footsteps approached the wall of closets. I could see Gil’s highly polished loafers as he passed beyond the closet where the others hid. He opened the door to another closet and I heard the rattle of a hanger.

Finally, after I had aged about ten years, Gil’s closet door closed once more, his loafers recrossed my line of vision, and his footsteps retreated down the hall. I didn’t move until I identified the sounds of the back door closing and the engine of his car starting up.

Then I crawled out from my hiding place. After one incredulous glance at the closet door, I swung it wide open. “Quick! We have to get out of here!”

“
Whew! That was close,” Minnie said, as she untangled herself from a green chiffon tea dress that seemed determined to come with her.

“
You can say that again,” Tyler said. “That was creepy.”

“
Get moving,” I ordered. “Minnie’s scarf was sticking out of the closet door. Gil couldn’t have missed seeing it.”

“
Then why—” Alix began.

“
Why didn’t he call the cops?” I asked. “I’m sure that’s exactly what he’s doing from his cell phone right now.”

“Freeze! Police!” The command came simultaneously from authoritative voices on each side of us.

Alix stifled a laugh and muttered out of the side of her mouth, “I thought they only said that in the movies.”

“
Don’t shoot!” Minnie squeaked, shifting from foot to foot in the iris bed.

“
We have no intention of shooting, Ma’am. Just stay put.”

Getting Minnie through that bedroom window had been no small task. In the future, I’d recruit only accomplices as lithe as Alix and Tyler. I glanced around, but Tyler was nowhere in sight. He had probably sprinted into the alfalfa. That was fine with me. One less person to explain. Now I could concentrate on manufacturing a plausible reason for having my gloved hands inside the open window of Gil’s bedroom. There was also the matter of explaining the actions of my companions, who were currently making mush of the flower bed.

“
Turn around slowly, all of you, hands over your heads.”

I mustered all the heartiness I could. “You really scared us. What a silly mistake.” I attempted a small laugh to match my words, but it died in my throat at the expressions on the two deputies’ faces. They advanced shoulder to shoulder, ready to defend Truth, Justice, and the American Way—but not to laugh off this situation. Both were now close enough to allow me to read their name tags: Charles Quigley and John Weems. They looked so official and serious that I wanted to tell them to lighten up—they weren’t facing Al Capone here—but they weren’t in a joking mood.

“
Somebody made a mistake all right,” said Deputy Weems. His words might have sounded more menacing had I not been distracted by a cowlick which caused his brown hair to stand straight up at the back of his head.

Alix spoke up. “We can explain everything.”

“
Oh, my, yes,” Minnie added in an unnatural voice. “We certainly can. Go ahead, Jane.”

“
You’ll get your chance, Ma’am,” said Deputy Quigley, “but first we need to see some identification.”

“
I’m Jane Serrano and this is Minnie Salter and Alix Boudreau. Anyone in town can vouch for us. You must be very new to the department or you’d recognize us.”

“Identification, please.”

“I don’t have any with me, but—”

“
You work with Brady Newman, don’t you?” Minnie asked. “He used to cut through my yard on his way to and from school when he was a youngster, and I was his Sunday school teacher. Brady can tell you that we’re perfectly respectable.”

“
Uh huh,” said Deputy Weems. “Why were you climbing in this window?”

It wouldn’t help our cause if I mentioned that we were climbing out of the window, not into it, so I just skipped that part. “Look,” I improvised, “it’s all perfectly innocent. We were trying to help our friend Gil—District Attorney Gilbert Fortune, that is—with … uh … well, men are so helpless around the house, you know. We thought the poor man probably needed help … with the housework.”

“
Uh huh. And the gloves?”

Alix came through. “Did you ever try to keep a manicure in decent shape? No, of course not.” She stripped off the gloves and held up her delicate hands for inspection. “You simply can’t do housework without gloves and hope to keep your nails from breaking.”

“
Did Mr. Fortune ask you to do his housework?” asked Deputy Quigley.

“
Of course not. It was to be a surprise, and now you’ve ruined it,” Minnie said. She was rallying nicely.

“
Uh huh,” said Deputy Weems again. His conversation needed a little punching up and I was becoming annoyed with his attitude. He didn’t believe a thing we said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Quigley was looking at the mess we’d made of the garden. “He’ll be surprised at the way those flowers look, that’s for sure. Come with us, please.”

“
Where?” Minnie asked.

“
To the station, where you can be reunited with your old friend Brady,” Deputy Weems said.

“
That would be a big waste of time,” Alix said.

“
Uh huh.” Weems returned to his favorite rejoinder.

“
But I’ve explained the situation to you,” I argued.

“
Yes, Ma’am, but you’ll have to do it again down there,” Quigley said politely.

“
Can’t you call Brady?” Minnie asked. “He’ll tell you.”

“
Yes, Ma’am. He can do that at the station.”

As we made our way to the patrol car parked in the driveway, I looked around for Tyler, but he was keeping himself well out of sight. While Deputy Quigley settled us into the back seat, Deputy Weems radioed ahead. “Tell Gil we got ‘em, but it wasn’t who he thought. No sign of Kurt.”

We exchanged looks. Gil had known very well who was in his house when he called in the alarm, unless Kurt had recently taken to wearing paisley scarves. He had simply wanted to humiliate us.

“
You won’t put the siren on, will you?” Minnie wanted to know.

“
No need for that,” said Deputy Quigley as he settled himself behind the wheel. I had the feeling that if Deputy Weems had been in charge, we’d have ridden through town with siren blaring.

As we drove back to the sheriff’s department, which we had left only a few short hours before, we stuffed our gloves into our pockets. No need to highlight them. Someone there with a suspicious mind might be tempted to think the gloves were something housebreakers might wear. We arrived all too soon. This time we drove around to the back of the building, where Deputy Quigley wheeled the patrol car into place with a flourish before escorting us inside.

Gil was waiting for us, his campaign smile at the ready. “Ladies, what’s this all about? I assumed it was that fool Kurt acting up again—or maybe his delinquent son.”

“They
claimed
they were there to help you with the housework,” Weems volunteered.

“Yes, since you have a lot on your mind right now,” I said. I launched into our bogus explanation as sincerely as possible, but it sounded ridiculous, even to me. “You probably aren’t used to taking care of the house by yourself.”

Gil appeared puzzled. “You thought Vanessa’s closet needed cleaning? I don’t understand.”

“You don’t?” Minnie’s voice came out as a monotone, very different from her usual cheerful prattle. “Actually, we thought you might need more food, since you enjoyed my pot roast so much.”

Gil walked right into it. “Well, you certainly know the way to my heart, Minnie. You have an unorthodox way of offering help with the house, but your cooking makes up for everything. That pot roast was all that kept me going last week.”

“Well now, if this is all cleared up, maybe we can go,” I said cheerfully. It was a last desperate try at staving off disaster. Minnie’s voice remained level, but I could sense that the volcano was about to blow.

“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that,” Minnie replied. “Were you able to finish it?”

“Every bite. It was delicious.”

I closed my eyes, helpless. Here it came.

“What have you done with Bianca?” Minnie roared. “Where is she?”

“What?” Gil’s smile slipped.

“That pot roast wasn’t touched! We know all about … everything! We know what you did!”

“What are you talking about?” Gil was incredulous at Minnie’s words, as well he might be.

“A man who will lie about pot roast will lie about anything,” Minnie insisted.

“We know Bianca went to see you, and now she’s disappeared,” Alix said. “And what did you do to her dog?”

“Where’s Bianca?” Minnie thundered.

Gil threw up his hands. “I’ve tried to be patient, but this has gone far enough. I didn’t see your daughter and I didn’t do anything to her dog.” He turned to the waiting deputies. “Please escort these ladies from the building.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where she is,” I said.

“Now!” Gil ordered. “I don’t have the time or the energy to go through this nonsense again. Get them out of here.”

“But, Gil, they’re threatening you.” Deputy Weems was itching to use his shiny handcuffs.

“They’re crazy. No charges. I just want them gone.” Gil strode from the room. The two young officers faced us, arms folded.

“Hiding behind your deputies won’t work, Gil!” I shouted at his retreating back. He kept going.

My eyes burned from lack of sleep. I hadn’t been able to settle down after the fiasco at the sheriff’s department yesterday, but I had done a lot of thinking about how to proceed. Unfortunately, I now had a ringing in my head that I knew well from the months after Tony died. Too little sleep and too much tension were a bad combination, but there was no help for it. I was running on pure adrenaline.